Wednesday, March 28, 2012

After the extinction of the Tasmanian tiger in the the 1930s, the Tasmanian devil became the largest living carnivorous marsupial in the world. Now the Tasmanian devil is also in trouble. Since the mid-nineties, the wild devil population has been decimated by an aggressive parasitic cancer which is transmitted between individuals when feeding. Tasmanian devils are primarily scavengers, and when they locate a meal squabbling and biting usually ensues. This often leads to cuts to their faces and since the devil population is so closely related genetically, this aggressive cancer is able to be quickly spread from one individual to another, making it, in essence, a contagious cancer. Once an individual becomes infected, it can easily transmit the cancer to other devils until the tumours become so large that they hinder the devil's ability to eat and it eventually starves to death.

During the year and a half we stayed in Tasmania we only saw one Tasmanian devil in the wild, and never heard their haunting screams in the night (which Josh remembers hearing frequently while visiting Tasmania as a child). Animal reserves and zoos around the country are busy developing breeding programs in an attempt to preserve some genetic diversity in case the wild populations becomes completely eradicated.

A mother teaches her young how to fight for their meal.

Apparently the Tasmanian Devil has the strongest jaw strength of any living mammal (over 5,100 psi (35,000 kPa)).

Spotted quolls are another carnivorous marsupial, but unlike the Tasmanian devil, the quoll hunts for its meals, and is considered an apex predator.

The forester kangaroo is Tasmania's only kangaroo (other Tasmanian Macropods [not shown] are the Bennets wallaby, the pademelon, the bettong, and the potoroo). In the 1950s-1960s the forester kangaroo was reduced to 15% of their previous numbers. Though typically smaller than their mainland relatives, they are the largest marsupial in Tasmania (and the second largest in the world after the red kangaroo).

Welcome to our travel blog. Our amazing trip through Latin America came to an end in December 2009 and we are currently living in Australia. However, we will continue to publish posts every few days until we are caught up.

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Our route

View Josh and Laura´s Journey in a larger map
An interactive map of our route to date. Our Google map account seems to be a little overloaded now so to see our entire route click "View Josh and Laura's Journey in a larger map." You may alternatively click and drag this mini map to see where we are now. While our photos are typically months behind we tend to keep the map relatively current.
Blue lines are by bus or carRed lines are by boatGreen lines are by foot or bikeOrange lines are by trainPurple lines are by planePlacemarkers represent places where we have spent at least one night.